It has become a cliché to quote the age-old maxim that you should never meet your heroes. I am also of the belief that you should never write about meeting them either. But I am going to make an exception for Nicolas Roeg, who passed away aged 90 on November 26, 2018. It’s commonly accepted, and certainly in the tributes that have flowed since his death, that Roeg was a genius of the cinema. In his lifetime he was not always held in such lofty regard, as his longtime friend and producing associate Jeremy Thomas was swift to point out when he chastised the U.K. film establishment for its neglect of one of its most visionary talents. “Roeg was one of the major figures but he wasn’t supported by the British Film Industry. There is something about our culture that we don’t revere our greatest filmmakers, especially if they...
- 12/10/2018
- MUBI
Director and noted cinematographer Nicolas Roeg, whose offbeat films included “Performance,” “Don’t Look Now,” “The Witches” and “The Man Who Fell to Earth,” has died. He was 90.
His son Nicolas Roeg Jr. told the BBC his father died Friday night.
A daring and influential craftsman, Roeg’s idiosyncratic films influenced filmmakers including Danny Boyle and Steven Soderbergh.
He worked his way up from the bottom of the business and by the 1960s was much in demand as a cinematographer, responsible for the lensing of films including “Petulia,” “Far From the Madding Crowd” and “Fahrenheit 451.”
The controversial, oddly compelling Mick Jagger-starring “Performance,” which Roeg co-directed with Donald Cammell, was almost not released and then was recut by Warner Bros.; execs at the studio found it incomprehensible as a gangster thriller. It was eventually recut, released in 1970 to modest business and decades later received widespread acclaim as a classic of British cinema.
His son Nicolas Roeg Jr. told the BBC his father died Friday night.
A daring and influential craftsman, Roeg’s idiosyncratic films influenced filmmakers including Danny Boyle and Steven Soderbergh.
He worked his way up from the bottom of the business and by the 1960s was much in demand as a cinematographer, responsible for the lensing of films including “Petulia,” “Far From the Madding Crowd” and “Fahrenheit 451.”
The controversial, oddly compelling Mick Jagger-starring “Performance,” which Roeg co-directed with Donald Cammell, was almost not released and then was recut by Warner Bros.; execs at the studio found it incomprehensible as a gangster thriller. It was eventually recut, released in 1970 to modest business and decades later received widespread acclaim as a classic of British cinema.
- 11/24/2018
- by Richard Natale
- Variety Film + TV
The following is an essay featured in the anthology George Cukor - On/Off Hollywood (Capricci, Paris, 2013), for sale at www.capricci.fr.
The Film Society of Lincoln Center will be running a complete retrospective on the director, "The Discreet Charm of George Cukor," in New York December 13, 2013 - January 7, 2014. Many thanks to David Phelps, Fernando Ganzo, and Camille Pollas for their generous permission.
The Second-hand Illusion:
Notes on Cukor
Above: The Chapman Report (1962), A Life of Her Own (1950)
“There’s always something about them that you don’t know that you’d like to know. Spencer Tracy had that. In fact, they do all have that – all the big ones have it. You feel very close to them but there is the ultimate thing withheld from you – and you want to find out.” —George Cukor1
“Can you tell what a woman’s like by just looking at her?” —The Chapman Report...
The Film Society of Lincoln Center will be running a complete retrospective on the director, "The Discreet Charm of George Cukor," in New York December 13, 2013 - January 7, 2014. Many thanks to David Phelps, Fernando Ganzo, and Camille Pollas for their generous permission.
The Second-hand Illusion:
Notes on Cukor
Above: The Chapman Report (1962), A Life of Her Own (1950)
“There’s always something about them that you don’t know that you’d like to know. Spencer Tracy had that. In fact, they do all have that – all the big ones have it. You feel very close to them but there is the ultimate thing withheld from you – and you want to find out.” —George Cukor1
“Can you tell what a woman’s like by just looking at her?” —The Chapman Report...
- 12/10/2013
- by David Phelps
- MUBI
Dutch Colonialism and its long-lasting consequences are the topics of the documentary ’Empire’ at the Redcat (photo: ’Empire: The Unintended Consequences of Dutch Colonialism’) Mixing personal narratives, investigative journalism, video art, and split/multiple screens, Eline Jongsma and Kel O’Neill’s transmedia documentary Empire: The Unintended Consequences of Dutch Colonialism — the lengthy title gives you a pretty good idea of what the film is about — will have its West Coast Premiere on Monday, November 11, 2013, at 8:30 p.m. at downtown Los Angeles’ Redcat. Both Eline Jongsma and Kel O’Neill are expected to attend the screening. Previously shown at the 2013 New York Film Festival, Empire: The Unintended Consequences of Dutch Colonialism was filmed in more than half a dozen countries over the course of three years. According to the Redcat press release, the Dutch-American filmmakers (Jongsma is Dutch; O’Neill is American) "traveled 140,000 kilometers through Asia, Africa, Oceania and...
- 10/15/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Ava Gardner as a disguised version of Rita Hayworth in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's The Barefoot Contessa Ava Gardner is back on Turner Classic Movies on Thursday evening (well into Friday morning), with four releases from the 1950s followed by the "Find Ava" section — seven titles from the '40s in which Gardner had bit roles. The two highlights of the evening are John Ford's Mogambo (1953) and Joseph L. Mankiewicz's The Barefoot Contessa (1954). Mark Robson's The Little Hut (1957) is a watchable comedy, while George Cukor's Bhowani Junction (1957), a soap-operaish melodrama set in India, is the evening's embarrassment. Both co-star Stewart Granger. Among the Best Actress Oscar nominees of 1953, Deborah Kerr would have been my top pick for her adulterous wife in From Here to Eternity. Gardner would have been the runner-up for her vibrantly sensual performance in the African jungle-set Mogambo, a remake of Victor Fleming...
- 11/11/2010
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Prolific actor and director who made the much-loved film The Railway Children
As an actor Lionel Jeffries, who has died aged 83, was a master of comic unease. This was perhaps fuelled by the personal unease he felt in a sex-and-violence era which overtook the gentler sensibilities he sometimes brought to his acting. But he was able to bring these sensibilities fully to bear in his scriptwriting and film directing, particularly in his much-loved adaptation of the classic children's novel The Railway Children. With the latter, he left an indelible mark on the British film industry and generations of teary-eyed viewers.
The son of two devoted workers for the Salvation Army, Jeffries disliked personal publicity and was a zealot when preparing a role (he ran two miles every morning before appearing in the musical Hello Dolly! after an absence from the London stage of 26 years). He deplored permissivism, and was not...
As an actor Lionel Jeffries, who has died aged 83, was a master of comic unease. This was perhaps fuelled by the personal unease he felt in a sex-and-violence era which overtook the gentler sensibilities he sometimes brought to his acting. But he was able to bring these sensibilities fully to bear in his scriptwriting and film directing, particularly in his much-loved adaptation of the classic children's novel The Railway Children. With the latter, he left an indelible mark on the British film industry and generations of teary-eyed viewers.
The son of two devoted workers for the Salvation Army, Jeffries disliked personal publicity and was a zealot when preparing a role (he ran two miles every morning before appearing in the musical Hello Dolly! after an absence from the London stage of 26 years). He deplored permissivism, and was not...
- 2/19/2010
- by Dennis Barker
- The Guardian - Film News
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